A day in a tropical paradise hiding from worldly problems

There is a 2 hour time difference, but that is not the only reason why in Kona I always get up before 6 am. 

6 am at this time of year is an hour before sunrise, and the ocean in front of the balcony is still dark but no less noisy.

 There is something in turning all the lights out and watching the ocean and the surf appear out of darkness while having one's morning coffee.

But as soon as there is enough light to see, there will be surfers on the water.

See the two dots close to the horizon on the left?

wave coming .. start paddling 

success

Old habits die hard, and even though this habit is only 2 years old, my coffee is accompanied by half a Papaya sprinkled with lime juice.  No better way to wake up !!

Yes, my picture, my papaya, my breakfast ;-)

When I take down the stairs to the ocean a bit later, I realize how fast those Darth Vader crabs (see last year or look further down in this post) really move.  I am the first one down at the ocean and they scurry fast.  In fact, I see one scurrying scarily fast OVER WATER. Their legs move so fast shoveling water that they don't even sink in. SCARY!

I discover eggs that some turtle with night vision must have deposited last night.

These feet are under water!  If the crabs move over the water's surface, my toes want to be below the water's surface.

On my way up to the apartment, after my usual smoke break, I am still early enough to pick up some of these Plumeria flowers that a tree has dropped overnight, before the groundskeepers arrive to dispose of them as garbage.  Crazy world !

Grandma falls asleep in her breakfast chair on the balcony after saying "I could spend the next 20 years of my life here" (and that is precisely why I brought her here ;-).  I take a taxi back to the airport to pick up a rental car from Alamo and then stop at Safeway again to fill an updated shopping list.









At 2 pm I head back to the ocean rocks to see whether another turtle has shown up to lay eggs (I saw one from the balcony this morning).

This morning's turtle's picture taken from the balcony ;-)

No turtle this time, but speeding Darth Vader Crabs,



a sea cucumber and sea urchins,

since I have no idea what  this one is called, let's call it a tropical fish.

Then I see it (No, not a turtle). I think it has seen me first and is QUICKLY heading out of the tide pools into the open ocean.  The little bugger (or box?) moves so quickly that I can't get a picture.  Fortunately I know that these buggers (or boxes ;-) are called Kofferfish (literally: Suitcase fish) in German.  And here is a picture of what I saw speeding into the ocean.
 Meet the white-spotted box fish:

Not my picture; I was too slow (But I'm sure that damned suitcase fish exceeded the speed limit)

Later in the afternoon, I get my own picture of a white-spotted box fish (admittedly not as pretty as the picture above):







And of another tropical fish.  

And of another turtle !

Walking up to the 4th floor, I also for the first time see the solar cell array on the roof.

To round up the positive aspects of today, it was also Yiman's birthday today. 
Happy Birthday, Yiman !

On the dark side:  I completed a semi-long letter to the son of my spare mom, who died on Monday.  Also, yesterday during the flight here, a friend had texted me to inform me that he is suffering from lung cancer.  When I called him today, he barely had enough air in his lungs to speak.  While Grandma truly enjoys her time on the veranda, she sleeps a lot and is quite wobbly and disoriented when she walks.  

There is a bit of numerology I had noticed. Grandma is 96 years old this year.  George was exactly 1/3 of that age when he died this year. Spare mom was exactly 2/3 of that last week. I am exactly 1/2 of that age (another 4 days and I'll be safe).  
Good thing I don't believe in numerology ;-)